Sweet wine and fine dining: simple pleasures at Bordeaux's Chateau Lafaurie-Peyraguey
For aficionados of sweet wines, there is no more memorable way to finish a meal than with a glass of Chateau d’Yquem. But its rare deliciousness and relative scarcity make it punishingly expensive. A random search reveals that a bottle of the 2006 will set you back just over ￡360. For that reason the dessert wine of choice at celebratory dinners chez nous has long been Chateau Lafaurie-Peyraguey, another Sauternes premier grand cru classé from the next-door estate. The two chateaux are less than a mile apart, so the latter's terroir of its 100 acres is as good as the same, and it has been rated third (to Yquem’s first) in the 1855 Classification of Sauternes and Barsac.
Both are principally Semillon, balanced by Sauvignon Blanc, though Yquem has a higher proportion of the latter. And though it hasn’t quite got the hard-to-define quality that makes Yquem so utterly and distinctively divine, it is still very, very good. Better yet a bottle can be had for about a tenth of what you’d pay for an Yquem.
Since 2014 Lafaurie-Peyraguey has belonged to the Swiss entrepreneur, collector and oenophile Silvio Denz, the majority shareholder and chairman of the Lalique Group and owner of Villa René Lalique near Strasbourg. Its success has prompted him to open Chateau Lafaurie-Peyraguey as a hotel and restaurant, which makes it the first first-growth estate you can actually stay on.
Located 32 miles southeast of Bordeaux airport, near the villages of Bommes, the chateau dates back 400 years and is a handsome fortified structure of honey-coloured stone built by Raymond Peyraguey. Monsieur Lafaurie bought it only after the Revolution, its then owner, who had planted the vines, having perished.
Its 10 guest rooms and three suites have been designed by Green and Mingarelli, the Monaco-based practice co-founded by Sir Philip Green’s wife, Tina, in a style redolent of art deco they describe as “country chic”, though there’s a Damien Hirst cross in the chapel.
Not surprisingly there is also an abundance of Lalique glass, which has been used to embellish all manner of things, from the arms of the fauteuils, the chandeliers and light fittings to the napkin rings and Peugeot pepper grinders in the 40-cover restaurant. This is overseen by Jêrome Schilling, 35, a protégé of the late Roger Vergé, as well as the likes of Joel Robuchon, Thierry Marx and latterly Jean-Georges Klein, who holds two Michelin stars at Villa Rene Lalique. Sauternes will play a significant role in the menu, and the wine cellar will run to 350,000 bottles.
For lovers of fine wines and considerate design there are many tasteful touches to uncover over a weekend here. Even the chateau’s wine bottles have been redesigned to incorporate a relief of René Laliques’ 1928 carving Femme et Raisins, literally Woman and Grapes, originally made to adorn the panelling of the wagons-lits on the C?te d’Azur Pullman-Express.
Chateau Lafaurie-Peyraguey, from €250 (￡220) to €800